I Promise

25

The next day at school, I didn't see Matt until the afternoon. He wasn't in my English class, or my biology class, but all of a sudden I see him leaning over the locker next to mine, smiling his lopsided grin.

I walk over and he hugs me, almost for too long. I mean believe me, I don't mind, but it's a weird hug, like a farewell hug, or one of those really teary eyed hugs after someone leaves for a year and comes home as a surprise.

We break off and he kisses my forehead. I already hear some people whispering across the halls, and I can definitely see from the corner of my eye that people are staring. But I don't care, because I wonder where Matt was this morning, and why all of a sudden he hugged me for so long, almost as if he was saying goodbye or he was about to go die or something.

Think even more Rynn, and you'll start to depress yourself.

I shove my thoughts aside and look into his deep ocean eyes, looking for anything, really. An answer, a hint of sadness, happiness. But I just see the faint replication of myself.

"Where were you today?" I ask him. I'm leaning over my locker because I didn't even have time to open it when he embraced me in a hug. Matt seems to either not listen to me or he chose to ignore the question because he keeps looping my hair around his fingers, smiling. Almost as if he's having a daydream or he's completely isolated from the rest of the world. He seems a bit alienated right now, and I keep wondering why.

It's nothing you did

I take a short breath.

"Matt," I say. "Matt," I start again, and he stops playing with my hair as I grab his hand.

"Hmmm?" he asks. He seems tired, or not really focused.

"Where were you?" I ask. For some reason, I don't like it. Call it intuition, but I have a weird feeling in my gut and it's making me nervous.

Matt shrugs. "I just came late."

I stand up from my leaning position. I am not buying whatever he's saying. He seems to get that too, so he stands up as well. In full height, he's even taller than I realized. My head barely reaches his broad chest.

"Are you okay?" is all I ask. If he doesn't want to share the truth, then I'm okay with it. I haven't been completely honest about my life with him either.

This time, Matt seems to sense my nervousness, and he looks me in the eyes, focused. Whatever he was thinking about, he's let go.

"Rynn Connaughy, I am fine. In fact, I'm perfect, better than I ever was before."

I look at him, searching for a waiver of a lie, but I find nothing, so I hug him.

"I'll see you in Math," I whisper in his ear.

He smiles as we break free. For some reason, both of us know that he wasn't planning on eating in the cafeteria. I have soccer practice anyway, but I can't help shake the feeling that something happened to him that he doesn't want to talk about. God, did I act like that when something bad happened at home? I might as well have put a sign on my head that read "Look at me! My life is fucked up right now!" I sure hope that whatever happened, it's nothing serious. Plus, I feel like Matt was just distracted, not upset about anything. But what was he distracted about?

I walk out onto the field with my cleats on, ready to attack Coach Nobelton's drills. We play a little scrimmage on the field, and she challenges us to make fifty passes before trying to go up and shoot on the net. Practice ends too soon, and I head to the showers and quickly freshen up, not wanting to be late.